Padfoot's Tale
by Sylviecake231
Summary: Oneshot. Sirius Black's story, from finding the Potters' dead in Godric's Hollow, to escaping from Azkaban 12 years later. As always, reviews help enormously, so please review! And I apologize for the length of this oneshot, got a bit carried away!


I could have banged my head against a brick wall then, since my cell was surrounded by them. I didn't though, because I knew I was innocent.

I had lived through my friends being tortured and killed, one by one. I could live through this, because I knew, even if no one else did, that I wasn't the guilty one, I wasn't the one to blame.

First to go was Marlene McKinnon. Marlene had been friends with Lily at school; her best friend. She was bubbly, and funny, and she loved anything to do with clothes, or make up, or hair. She was the one who really got excited when James and Lily started dating; it meant she could dress Lily up for their dates, the way she always loved to.

Lily especially had been wrecked when we heard that Death Eaters had broken into the McKinnon home one night, and killed the entire family. She'd cried all night, and Prongs had had to spend his night wiping her eyes and soothing her. Not that he cared about the hours of sleep-time he was wasting, being the love-stricken git he was around Evans. Lily had written to me though, telling me about her, James and Wormy's joined grief over the deaths – apparently Peter had seemed very upset over it, the slimy git. I will never forgive him.

Then it was Benjy Fenwick. He had been a couple of years below us, in Ravenclaw, and a more eager-to-please boy couldn't have been found anywhere. I remembered him asking out Lily in our third year, and her half-amused, half-guilty looking face when she turned him down. His death had shocked all of us, even Aberforth, Dumbledore's brother, who never got emotional, under any circumstances. Dumbledore had told us that Aberforth had lost pretty much every emotion he had since the death of his sister. Albus had promptly changed the subject then, a tear sliding down his cheek.

Next to go was Caradoc Dearborn, who had not turned up for work one day, and from then on is history, quite literally. We searched for him all over, but with the amount of murders that were happening at that time; we guessed what had happened to him. He was another one that had been at school with us, though being three years above us, and in Hufflepuff, we didn't see much of him, except for quidditch, when he was the Hufflepuff quidditch captain for a few years. Yet another admirer of Lily's, though she rejected him also. Remus and I joked that she was saving herself for Prongs, though he still had to wait until seventh year, when she finally agreed to go out with him. And I never did see Prongs so happy as when she said yes, and his face practically split open, as Remus smiled a big grin at the couple, and I yelled 'Finally!' and proceeded to announce it to the whole common room, as Marlene, Dorcas and Mary launched themselves onto Lily, and hugged her so much she almost suffocated.

Dorcas Meadows, another of Lily's friends at Hogwarts, another female counterpart of Remus, only gigglier. According to Mad-eye, Dorcas had been personally murdered by Voldermort, though the reason for it I never knew. Yet again Lily was the most badly affected by this, and cried so much I thought she would never get over it.

Then it had been Fabian and Gideon Prewett to go. They had been beaters on the Griffindor quidditch team, though they had left the year before we started. Being the brothers of Molly Weasley, they had their work cut out for them from the beginning, as Molly's motherly nature took hold of her when her brothers mucked about at Hogwarts, or when she found a Charms essay of Fabian's that had a big 'D' scrawled at the bottom in red ink. It was easy to see where Fred and George had got their prankster natures from. I can still recall her telling us off because of the tricks they were playing at school, and that she had received 5 letters from Dumbledore in one day because of it. James, naturally, had laughed his head off and told Molly to watch out, because his son would be the worst prankster of them all when he got to school, beating even the Marauders in terms of jokes and pranks.

Edgar Bones and his family had gone pretty much the same way as Marlene's family. Death Eaters

Had broken into his house one day, and killed Edgar, his wife, and their three children, who I can't remember the names of. Amelia Bones, to avenge her brother, had gone to work in magical law in order to capture those Death Eaters who killed her brother and his family, and send them to their rightful place, in Azkaban, the same awful, depressing prison I was stuck in.

Alice and Frank's fate had been possibly the worst. Alice, yet another of Lily's school friends, had always been such a friendly, happy person, and Frank was the perfect gentleman, who held open doors for teachers and always did his homework on time, the sort of boy James could only be when Evans was nearby.

I was ashamed of my cousin, not for the first time though, and disgusted and horrified by her delight in torture when Bellatrix, her husband, her husband-in-law, and Barty Crouch's son, also called Barty, had snuck into the Longbottom home, and tortured Alice and Frank for information on Voldermort's whereabouts, in front of Frank and Alice's son, Neville, who was only a few months old at the time. Of course, Alice and Frank had no idea where Voldermort was, as he had vanished a couple of months beforehand, and hadn't been sighted since. Since the Longbottoms' confinement to St. Mungo's, I hadn't seen them. Mad-eye had visited them, as had Frank's mum, but I hadn't. Mad-eye had told me how Alice had completely lost her friendly, round shape, and how Frank looked more like one of those muggle creatures – zombies – than a person, and I hadn't been able to go in and see them. I couldn't face it, especially after what had happened before their torture.

Voldermort's abrupt disappearance was the result of two more murders, plus an attempted murder, the murders being those of my best friend and his wife

James Potter. The first first-year not to judge me because of my family; the first first-year to not know me as' that Black boy who was-sorted into Griffindor'. The boy who had offered me a home with him and his parents when I ran away from my own home, the one who I could talk about anything with, from my so-called parents to Evans to that hotgirl in Ravenclaw that we never knew the name of. We pulled pranks together, we snuck out using his invisibility cloak, we slept in a dorm together (until seventh year, when he ditched me, Remus, Frank and Peter to go and share a head girl/boy's dorm with Lily). He was more than a brother to me.

And then there was Lily. The girl who caused Moony, Wormtail and I such pain over the years, as Prongs repeated every single sentence Lily ever said to him, most being 'What don't you understand about 'no'?' and 'Leave me alone, you arrogant toe-rag!'. We had to advice him about everything over the years, from telling him to compliment her hair, to advice on how to make himself more attractive to her. It was an enormous relief when she finally said yes to him. But apart from all the pain she indirectly caused us, she would lend us her homework to copy in times of trouble, i.e when we hadn't done our if-you-don't-hand-this-in-tomorrow-you're-dead homework; she had a brilliant sense of humour, she made Prongs happy, which was handy, as it put him in a ridiculously good mood when it came to pranks and asking him favours. She was like a sister to me.

And they both died that night.

I had been more than pleased when they announced their engagement, and honoured when they asked me to be their best man, and proud when they asked me to be the godfather for little Harry Potter, their son, who looked like a mini-James with Lily's eyes. James was so adamant that his son would be a brilliant quidditch player, and from what I've heard, he is. But that doesn't take away the scar from his forehead.

When I heard of Lily and James's murders, and of how Voldermort had then turned on my godson, and tried to kill him, I was furious. That, and shocked, at how a 1-year-old boy could stop a dark wizard as bad as Voldermort. I was proud again though, for a minute, at how that boy was my godson, and then I thought about how Lily and James would have been so proud of him, and I relapsed into grief.

I never did get completely over their deaths. Of course, I still had Remus, but I never could forgive Peter, for he was the one who betrayed their location to Voldermort. I told James and Lily to switch secret keepers, that Voldermort would never suspect Peter of being the secret keeper, that he would come after me, leaving Mr and Mrs Prongs and baby Prongs safe and sound in their cosy little cottage in Godric's Hollow. What I didn't know was that Wormtail had begun to work for Voldermort by then, and he ran straight off to his master to tell him the location of the Potters.

Therefore, I was indirectly to blame for my best friend/brother's and my friend/sister's deaths.

I went straight to the Potter's house when another of Lily's friends from Hogwarts, Mary MacDonald, send me an owl, covered in smudges and tear-stains, so I could barely read it, telling me the news. I was met with the site of the Potters' cosy little cottage half blasted apart, small flames still flickering in parts of the house. I will never forget that sight. It was proof that this was real, that this was all really happening, and my best friends were dead.

Dumbledore entered the house, and I was left standing in the street, watching the house.

'Harry,' I though. What would happen to Harry?

Dumbledore took a while inside what was left of the house, and when he finally emerged from the front door, and walked down the garden path, still neat and tidy, the way Lily liked it; he had someone with him, one of the people I really did not want to see then, or ever again, for that matter.

'What's he doing here?' I hissed, glaring at the figure next to Dumbledore, who had black, greasy hair hanging in deeply unattractive curtains.

'He is mourning a loss, same as you, Sirius,' Dumbledore said simply, and that's when I noticed the long objects that Dumbledore and Snape were carrying. Fresh floods of tears brimmed over in my eyes, and my vision went blurry.

'I want to carry him, and her,' I said to Dumbledore, who stared at me sadly. 'I want to hold my best friends.' He nodded, and passed me the covered body that, judging from the weight, had to be James. I stopped to try and hold him better, and couldn't believe that he wasn't sitting up in my arms and making some joke about me not needing to carry him over the threshold, bridal-style, that he was already married. He lay lifeless as Dumbledore magicked two stretchers, and I lowered James onto one of them, making sure he was completely covered by the sheet before turning to Snape.

'Give Lily to me, Snape,' I said firmly.

'No.' Snape clutched Lily's body against him, as if to protect her. Fat chance he could do that, even if he was alive.

'Pass her over, Severus,' Dumbledore instructed him, and Snape grudgingly passed Lily over. I noticed immediately that she was a whole lot lighter than her husband and considerably shorter too. I moved my hand to support her head, before kissing her forehead (Snape glared at me) and lowering her onto the second stretcher.

'Sirius, please could you take Lily and James to St. Mungo's?' Dumbledore's voice rang out in the silence.

'Sir, there's no point. We can't s-s-save them n-now...' My voice broke down into sobs, and I could feel Dumbledore's hand on my shoulder.

'Yes, but they need to be prepared for their burial. We don't have anywhere to keep them, so I suggest that you take them to the hospital morgue until the funeral.' Dumbledore apparated then, taking with him a very sour and grief-stricken looking Snape.

I looked at my two best friends, lying lifeless on their stretchers, and I imagined James's glasses falling down his straight nose, and him laughing and sighing, pushing them back up. I remembered when he got those glasses.

'_Come on out Prongs, they can't be that bad,' I said, pounding on the door._

'_Sirius! Be a bit more polite.' Remus pushed me out the way, and knocked on the bathroom door. 'James, we don't care if you've grown a tail in there, just come out.'_

'_Yeah, that and that Wormtail's dying to see his idol again,' I laughed, as Wormy promptly stamped on my foot, causing me to yelp with pain._

'_Fine.' James came out the bathroom, wearing his new glasses. 'Don't laugh.'_

'_Why would we? They look fine,' Remus said, forever the optimistic Marauder._

'_Evans will go off me in an instant now.'_

'_Prongs mate, Evans never said she wanted to go out with you in the first place,' I laughed, and Moony gave me 'the look'._

'_It's only the fifth year, she has plenty of time to get used to seeing you with glasses,' Remus said calmly, contrasting to James's panicky tone. 'And don't forget, Lily kissed that guy last year-'_

'_He was such a geek,' I interjected._

'_-that guy with the glasses, and they were much bigger than yours,' Remus finished._

'_Yeah, okay.' James sounded more confident now._

'_Plus, the glasses mean she'll be staring at them, and therefore, your face,' I said._

_James grinned, and followed us back into the common room._

I looked at the shape that was Lily, imagining her dark red hair spread around her head, like a halo. That's what she was, an angel, a sweet, innocent angel, except when it came to cursing James.

Hagrid came out of the house, having to crouch down in order to fit through the front door. I noticed that he was carrying a bundle of blankets, out of which I could just make out a tuft of black, messy hair.

'Give Harry to me, Hagrid, I'm his godfather, I'll look after him.' I said, reaching up to touch the tuft of black hair.

'No, Sirius, Dumbledore said ter take Harry ter his aunt an' uncle's, so I'm takin' him there. Sorry.' Hagrid said, clutching the crying baby tight, while Harry's one-year-old fist waved manically in the air, and he screamed his little lungs out.

'But I'm his _godfather_! Lily and James would have wanted me to look after him!' I argued. This baby was the only family I had left, and they were taking him away too?

'No, he's going ter Lily's sister's house. Dumbledore's orders.'

'Fine.' I looked at my flying motorbike, a Christmas present from James and his parents when I was a teenager, since they knew how much I loved the muggle invention. 'Take my motorbike to get Harry to Petunia's,' I said, not bothering to try and remember the name of her husband, since he had been so rude to Lily last time they had met. 'I won't need it anymore.'

'Thanks,' Hagrid said gruffly, and I hugged my godson, feeling tears forming in my eyes.

'It's ok, Sirius, Harry'll be ok at his aunt an' uncle's,' Hagrid said, hugging me.

'I know what'll happen! Those muggles were horrible to Lily, didn't even talk to James, never bothered to visit their nephew. They'll treat him like dirt! Harry Potter, the boy who lived, living with muggles, who treat him like a house elf! He'll have no idea of who he is, how important and famous he is!' I cried, hugging Hagrid, hugging his waist, since I couldn't reach any higher.

'I know, Sirius, I know. But Dumbledore ordered me ter take Harry to his aunt an' uncle's, an' I can' disobey Dumbledore,' Hagrid said tearfully, mounting the motorbike, Harry still crying in his blankets.

'Bye, Harry!' I said, but Hagrid and Harry were already gone, riding through the night on my motorbike.

I apparated straight to the hospital. I couldn't face the Knight Bus; Stan is far too nosy, and I'd never hear the end of him.

'Yes?' asked the welcome-witch, in a bored tone.

'I'm here to take Mr. and Mrs. Potter to the morgue' I said, sobbing.

'What the-'the welcome-witch yelled. And then, seeing the stretchers with the bodies on, she screamed.

'LILY! AND JAMES! OH MERLIN, WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM?' She screamed, so loudly that another witch came through to find out the problem.

'Nancy? What's- Oh Merlin! The basement!' She choked, levitating the stretchers so as to follow her down the steps to the basement.

I couldn'tfollow the witch downstairs. Isat on a plastic chair beside the desk, and I cried my eyes out.

I hardly ever cried. I hadn't cried when my mother told me that my brother was so much more than I would ever be, that I was a disgrace to the family. I hadn't cried when my favourite cousin, Andromeda, had run off to marry a muggle-born, Ted Tonks, the sweetest and most gentle muggle-born I had ever met. I hadn't cried when she got wiped off the family tree, and the whole family had gathered in the drawing room, saying what a crime it was, and that Andromeda was no longer part of our family. Nor had I cried when my mother sent me a howler in our first ever week at Hogwarts, cursing and disgracing me for being a Griffindor, or when I had run away from home and turned up on the Potter's doorstep in the middle of the night, red-faced and carrying one small suitcase and a broom. But I cried now. I had no family left in the world. My mother and father were dead, and good riddance, as was most of the Black family. Andromeda lived miles away with Ted, and their daughter, Nymphadora. Bellatrix was a Death Eater now, and so was no longer included in my family. Narcissa didn't talk to me anymore, as if I cared, Regulus was also gone, and now my brother and sister were lying dead in a morgue on the floor below, their son gone to live with muggles. I had no reason to live anymore.

Except that I did. I had to find Peter, and make him pay for this. I picked myself off the plastic chair in the reception of St. Mungos, and I pulled myself together enough to get out of there and start searching.

It must have taken me years, but I never kept track of the time anymore. All I knew was that I had to find Peter, and kill him for what he did to James and Lily. I spent half that time sleeping in alleyways and shop doorways, disguised as a big black dog. I scavenged out of bins, and begged food off passersby, and sometimes they would give me food, and sometimes they would stroke my thick fur, but most of the time they walked straight past me. And that was fine. I didn't want to be pitied, but I knew I must keep begging if I wanted to stay alive long enough to find Peter, and get revenge on him.

Finally, I tracked the mousy-haired midget down, walking in a muggle infested street in who-knows-where. I looked at his left arm as I walked behind him, and could just imagine a dark mark there, a reminder of the shameful creature he had become.

I grabbed his arm.

'Don't even think about moving.'

'Sirius!' Peter jumped about a foot into the air. 'What are you doing here? What do you want?'

'I want to know why you did that to my friends!' I snarled at him, looking into the same petrified, coward face I had always known.

'I'm afraid I don't know what you mean!' He squeaked, and I took my wand out my pocket, and shoved in by his chest.

'I will kill you, Peter. I don't know how you can live with yourself. I should've known that you'd go trailing around a powerful wizard like Voldermort, being the stupid, worshipping little creep that you are. I'm going to kill you, for myself and for Lily and James.'

'Avada-' But I was cut off.

'Lily and James, Sirius! How could you?' Wormtail yelled, causing a crowd of muggles to turn around and start staring at us.

BANG!

The ground in front ofme blew up, and I jumped back, squinting through the smoke to see a finger lying on the ground, and a rat disappearing down the drain. How clever of him, to fake his death, to make people think I'd killed him. But not clever enough. I swore that one day, I would find him, and I would not hesitate to murder him.

I became aware of people screaming, and two pairs of hands grabbed me, pulling me away from the drain where Peter had disappeared. But I never took my eyes off it. And then I laughed.

_Don't worry, Prongs_,' I thought, as I laughed. 'One_ day, I'll find Wormy, and make him pay for what they did to you and Lily.'_

The twenty ministry officials who had taken me from the muggle street took me staright to the Minister, and I was thrown into Azkaban without a second thought. They didn't bother with a trial, the evidence was clear; I'd killed Peter Pettigrew after betraying the Potters to Voldermort. Ha! They didn't know me at all. To them, I was a Black, and I loved Voldermort just as much as the rest of my family. They knew Bellatrix Lestrange was my cousin, and that Regulus Black was my brother, so therefore I was a Death Eater too. If only they had seen my mother's face when I told her I had no intention of becoming a Death Eater like Regulus, that one of my friends was a half-blood, and another was a muggle-born. She'd kicked me out of the house in an instant, and refused to let me back into the house for the rest of the year. But I didn't care. I'd spent Easter at Remus's, Summer at Remus's and James's, and then I'd gone back to James's at Christmas for Christmas dinner and to share the joys of opening presents with a proper family.

So here I am, in Azkaban. I've been here so long I can't remember how long exactly, nor can I remember the date, or the time. Harry must be at Hogwarts now. And he must look so much like James...

I hear my cell door opening, and I look up to see Cornelius Fudge coming in. What an idiot that man is, I'd always known that Dumbledore would be twice the Minister for Magic Fudge is, though Dumbledore would never dream of being Minister for Magic.

'Hello, Black. Nice to see you've finally calmed down a bit,' he says, grimacing and stepping carefully around me, as though frightened that I might have Splattergroit or something.

'I was never mad in the first place,' I say, looking him in the eye.

His jaw literally drops. 'H-how are you not mad yet? Everyone's gone mad in here, even Rabastan's gone a bit mad, and you've been here twice as long as him!'

I don't answer.

'Can I see that paper?' I ask Fudge.

'Well-well of course, the newest edition of the Daily Prophet. Only came out today,' he informs me, but I'm too busy looking at the date on the paper. 12th July 1993. So Harry was almost thirteen. _'I must get him a present when I get out of here,_' I thought.

'Thank you,' I told Fudge.

'Yes, well, I must go and check on Barty now. Bye.' And he was gone.

I looked at the front page. 'MINISTRY OF MAGIC EMPLOYEE SCOOPS GRAND PRIZE' the headline informed me. I didn't bother reading the article, I just looked at the picture, and I recognized Arthur and Molly Weasley, who had left two years before we started Hogwarts. I knew that they had a son Harry's age, which was at the front of the photo, next to a small girl with her parents' flaming red hair.

Then I froze. On the boy's shoulder sat a fat rat, which had one toe missing on its right foot.

'Peter,' I growled. Typical of Wormy, finding a wizard family who would take him in and look after him, instead of living off the streets. I knew without a doubt it was him; he was just as fat and short in real life.

I began to put together a plan. That night, when the Dementors brought me my evening food, I changed into a dog, and slipped out of the cell. I bounded out the door at top speed, jumped into the icy, black water, and swam for my life.

I must have been swimming through the night, because the sun was just rising as I got out onto the bank, and shook my fur. It might take a week, it might take a year, but the Weasley boy was going to go back to Hogwarts in September, and he was going to take Peter with him. So that's where I was headed, to Hogwarts. And when I found him, I vowed that I would avenge my best friends, and finally kill the man who turned against us.

Sorry it's so long, I kind of got a bit carried away! I hope you liked it, please press that review button and tell me what you thought of it. And also, tell me any story ideas, criticisms or improvements! Writers need to know how to improve!


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